A Mixed Week Heading into the Festive Season

Welcome to our next currency report, where we see how the British pound fared in the last full week before Christmas.

An overview of the currency markets for December 18th – December 22nd, 2017

Let’s begin this final full week before the festive season by seeing how the British pound would perform against the US dollar. We began on 1.3377 and had two poor days to start the week with. This took us down to 1.3359 by Tuesday night, and was far from the great start we’d been hoping for. While we perked up to 1.3411 on Wednesday, the remainder of the week was just as uncertain as the beginning had been. After a dip to 1.3360 on Thursday, we managed to eke out a final rise to 1.3382 on Friday, which was enough to just surpass the opening rate on Monday.

Could we manage to eke out a rise against the euro too, though? We opened promisingly by moving from 1.1331 to 1.1336 on Monday, although the rise was slight. But a drop to 1.1299 the following day took away any early promise we had seen. It soon became apparent there would be a rocky progression of exchange rates here, with a rise one day taken out by a fall the next. And so it went on – at least until Friday stalled the overall rot by ending on 1.1290.

Surprisingly, we endured a similar picture against the Hong Kong dollar. Up and down was the order of the week here, too. Beginning on 10.449, we rose on Monday to close the day on 10.451. And then a drop to 10.445 on Tuesday was cancelled out by a rise to 10.493 on Wednesday. As the pattern continued, the week ended on a good note at least – and in fact, we managed to rise overall as well, as the pound finished on 10.460 on Friday night.

While the pattern seen in the exchange rates between the British pound and the New Zealand is often very different to that seen elsewhere, it wasn’t the case this week. Instead, the pound copied the same up and down pattern seen against the Hong Kong dollar. Our starting position of 1.9039 turned out to be the lowest rate seen all week, which was a great sign. While we didn’t finish on the highest rate (that was 1.9214, achieved on Wednesday night), we did finish better off than we had been, stalling on 1.9085 on Friday.

Finally, we should see if the pound could achieve any forward motion against the Australian dollar. We began trading on 1.7429 here, before rising to 1.7449 by Monday night. However, despite the early promise, we didn’t manage to achieve anything long-lasting this week. Instead, the early up and down pattern was taken over by two falls on the final two days of the week. So, we ended up disappointed with a drop to 1.7340.

Notable events in the world of currency

A drop against the Canadian dollar

This was perhaps to be expected, so it was little surprise to see the pound falling from its opening rate of 1.7075 to a low of 1.7000 this week.

A slight rise for the pound against the Swiss franc

While the pound hadn’t done well against the euro, it did do better against another European currency – the Swiss franc. From an opening rate of 1.3222, the pound finished the week on 1.3249.

A better result against the Icelandic krona, too

Here too we had better news. The pound began the week on 141.089 before finishing it in a healthier position on 141.942.

So, it was a mixed bag of results last week, producing the occasional slice of good news but very little of it overall. Even where the pound did do well, the forward motion was slight, rather than seeing any large improvements.

As we move towards the end of 2017, one wonders how the New Year will develop. We don’t have long to wait to secure some answers to that intriguing question.